Tag Archives: leadership

While the day-to-day subtle and less-than-subtle sexism in the tech industry is something that usually doesn’t get national press, this month a Google employee’s manifesto — “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber” — about the supposed biological differences between men and women — had everyone talking about Silicon Valley and gender bias. Even Fox News got in on the action, will all the hubbub making manifesto author James Damore an insta-star of conservatives everywhere.

If you’ve been living under a rock, or think that companies don’t care about corporate liability after an employee writes a literal manifesto about why men are better than woman at certain things, you may not know that (or understand why) Damore was fired from Google. He was. And he isn’t going down without a fight… Continue reading →

A wise friend of mine the other day raised a very interesting point – why do I want to be in a senior leadership role? It first struck me as a strange questions – who wouldn’t want to be in a senior leadership role? Isn’t that the point of working – to be able to strategize and lead a team to achieve substantial goals? It doesn’t have to happen now but it is the eventual goal if you want to move up in your career.

He shocked some sense into me by noting that he doesn’t know many people – if any – that really WANT to be in such a senior role. No one wants this role because quite frankly it’s impossible to succeed in it… and I do feel it’s even harder as a woman (especially a socially awkward one) than it would be for a man.

The best senior leaders don’t actually do any work. They successfully hire / fire right and motivate their team to be their best aligned to the company’s common goals and they promote the shit out of themselves and their teams without sounding like their boasting. That’s it. That’s why successful executives tend to be the people who have a BA in BS – it’s a very valuable skill/trait to have, and it’s something so alien to my being that I am now convinced I ought to give up.

It is very clear that my current company is seeking to replace me as soon thats feasibly possible. I found out, through various means, that they’re interviewing for someone more polished and been-there, done-that to take over without actually telling me as much. It appears one candidate was far along in the process and took another offer, so perhaps this buys me some time. But I don’t want to buy time. I want to be good at my job. And this is the type of job I’ll never be good at. Why? Because I do too much.

I hate playing the gender card but I do think it’s a lot harder for women to get away with just being leaders. In a small company no one can really just manage – yet the true leaders are the ones that bring value to the table in their public speaking abilities and relationships, and everyone else does the work, work. Except – when you’re a female executive, especially a young, unproven one, you have to be both a leader and individual contributor. What I’m learning is most men wouldn’t even take a job that requires them to do that. I just seem to be a professional masochist.

That said, I’ve been going back to why I wanted this or any job like this in the first place… and the moments when I truly love what I do. I don’t really care about being the head of anything… but I do like to be in charge of strategy and lesser so execution. I’ve never done well working for someone who tells me exactly what to do. I have ideas and quite frankly I believe many of my ideas are good ideas… though my execution is admittedly lacking which gets me back to, well, this damned place where I know I’m on my way out, whether I like it or not.

My very german therapist tells me I need to stop chasing money. So do my blog readers. But it isn’t the money that makes this a job I like. I enjoy the wins. I am fueled by the victories where I can clearly show my contributions helped the bottom line. Perhaps I’m delusional in how much influence I can actually have given my anxiety drives my mind in unproductive circles time and again around the moments when I actually get shit done and put a dent in the everlasting pile of work that isn’t clearly defined yet is sitting so glob-like on my already-cracked and seemingly soon-to-be shattered plate.

But… I guess it’s true… not many people want to be in charge of departments. Especially not many people in their early 30s. That’s something you do when you’re 50+ and have many years of experience under your belt and the lines in your face which organically garners respect. The only reason someone like me gets hired in a position like this is 1) at the time I’m hired, better people for the position aren’t interested yet in joining and 2) better people for the position would refuse to join unless they were set up for success which = larger team so they don’t end up having to do all/most of the work in order to claim success.

Now, don’t get me wrong here – I’m not complaining about having to do work. I’m just struggling with being a senior executive and junior-level individual contributor and mid-level manager and creative expert all at the same time. This is a requirement of this role not in my company specifically but any small company hiring for the position, with slight variations. You are tasked with being everything and yet when you fail to do that you’ve let the world down and clearly you were a bad hire. Then the company goes back to the drawing board to learn from it’s “mistakes” and perhaps hires someone more traditional who can go through the motions at the least in a way that’s much more convincing than I ever could. In the end, though, few succeed. The best execs I know have all left startups. They’ve figured out that their best chance of success is to use their charisma to manage large teams and be that rock which inspires the masses to get shit done and not let said shit hit the fan.

I’m not that person. I’ll never have consistent, readily available charisma.

I can’t fake it. I drain too easily. I need to hide in a corner for a day and recharge.

My friend noted that if you want to become a senior exec you don’t try to become one, it just happens when you’re good at something. He’s right. I never was able to get good enough at any one thing so this whole career progression has been forced and riddled with improbable success paths and far more roads to failure. That’s just where I’m at now. It’s a lot to think about… but at least I feel myself pulling closer to accepting that I’m not a senior exec, I shouldn’t be one and I shouldn’t want to be one. So what should I want to be?

After a weekend of binge watching Amazon’s Golden Globe-winning Mozart in the Jungle, I felt equal parts saddened and inspired. Saddened, because the show follows the lives of artists — musicians — who dedicate their lives to creating. Their madness is enhanced for comedic purposes, yet the madness of a musician is something I mentally relate to far more than that of a CEO. However, I also found the show offering lessons in leadership, and a reminder that the conductor, while expected to be versed in numerous instruments and able to step in to play if needed, is considered successful as a leader, a director, an – orchestrator – not a musician, i.e., an individual contributor.

I’ve always wondered why conductors were considered so important — all they do, it seems, is wave a stick and keep everyone playing at the same pace. Perhaps they would make a bigger motion to increase volume, but it seems to be largely for dramatic effect. What does the conductor actually do? Why do orchestras — filled with musicians who can read music as well as most of us can read the English language — need a conductor to begin with?

My challenge as a manager is stepping away from my nature to be an individual contributor. Although in a small company, I cannot walk away from the individual contributor role entirely, my value is in being the conductor. With this in mind, I return to examining the value of a conductor – not as someone just waving a stick in the air in a marvelous rhythmic dance, but someone who is leading a team, interpreting the “best practices” of the music and adjusting with their vision, keeping everyone together, guiding them through to the final product. The conductor’s work and value, I’ve been reminded, largely is contributed before the product release (aka the performance.)

I think I’m actually a very good manager as a conductor, but when I’m trying to play the proverbial violin and trumpet and oboe at the same time, it makes it nearly impossible to conduct successfully. Although the conductor may step in to fill missing seats, it’s her responsibility to hire the right musicians and then inspire them to follow their greater vision. A manager must do the same thing. She must hire the right team members and determine what role they should play, how loud they should play it, and otherwise orchestrate the score of any given quarter’s objectives.

While business isn’t art, it’s still an orchestra of creation, and still needs to be conducted. Without a conductor in an orchestra, perhaps experienced musicians could play music – but they wouldn’t know which music to play, or how fast to play it, or what to do should one of their violinists get sick for an extended period of time. In romanticizing the life of an artist – which I do frequently – I find myself feeling most alive when I approach my own work as practical art. I can still bring the passion which a conductor brings to the stage in front of a large concert hall during a sold-out performance. I can inspire people to be excited to play their instruments from start to finish, even if they’ve played this score a million times. I can inspire them to think differently about the music, to hear subtle shifts in rhythm and composition, to try new things, take risks, and ultimately learn and grow and make the great music of increasing ARR.

In orchestrating a team, there is a musicality to the work, a rhythm which must be established, an ecosystem of players who must all come together to accomplish a common set of goals. So, while I likely lost the chance to live the life of the broke artist, I’ve gained the opportunity to make a new kind of music – one that 10 years ago I didn’t know existed. When I feel overwhelmed or frustrated or scared, I now close my eyes and imagine myself with a baton in front of an orchestra, and I examine by players as well as the notes written on the page, and with a deep breath, I lift the baton, and my team begins to play.

Being a great leader, no matter if you’re a politician running for office or a manager moving up the corporate ladder, requires one skill that no one will teach you in school. It is a particular art form which there is no course for, even in an MBA curriculum. That skill, the most important of all, is the art of lying.

It’s a matter of semantics, you can say, as the ability to hide the truth or fib or changing the subject is one of the most vital character traits of a leader. It is why many great leaders are sociopaths – lacking empathy helps in business, especially if you have the rare ability to convince others you care. Needless to say, I don’t do this well. As an INFP and enneagram 4 and Johnny Appleseed’s third cousin once removed, I’m partial to full-on truth. Luckily so far I haven’t been faced with anything challenging to keep under wraps. But I’ve seen leaders who I know, and even respect, flawlessly execute weeks without hinting at what is discussed behind closed doors.

Maybe college should offer a course on lying – lessons in leadership: the lost, but secretly never actually lost art of perfidy.

Except colleges already know that the best leaders already intimately know how smile and handshake their way through any looming storm. The less you feel, the better you can lead. Pick your poison regarding your favorite leadership style and you’ll find charisma synonymous with the ability to smooth any cracked surface. It’s a talent which you’re either born with or beaten into you in some way. Most leaders are men because most men are taught to not have emotions from day one. Women are typically expected to be openly emotional and thus, for some, when we enter the workforce the culture of deceit can shock our systems and leave us riding on empty.

Is it possible to be a leader and never tell a lie?

Only if you refuse to accept its definition.

Definition of LIE

Leaders are liars and liars are leaders. It is quite simple. But not all of us, men or women, are cut out to live a life of caring more about cashflow than people. And in capitalism we create this vicious cycle, this pyramid scheme from top down, with everyone clawing to get up and few ever making it to the tippy-top point where all you can do is lie – to others and yourself – in order to handle any remnants of feelings you once had for the sanctity of human life. It is up to us to perform the roles in the machine that cannot yet be performed by robots, but to think much like a robot, to make all decisions on communication and action based on a clearly calculated call on risk.

Maybe I’m just ravenously dissatisfied with our world today, a sentiment fueled by my marathon Mad Men watching and a general acknowledgement that no matter what firm you’re in, no matter what era, it is a dog eat dog world, and in this world I’m more or less a pescatarian.

I don’t have many happy memories of childhood. The memories I do have seem to jump from one moment of being yelled at or hit by my father to being bullied in school. Fourth grade. Dad is pissed I am too scared to swallow a pill needed for my chronic infections. He slaps me across my face. Hard. I’m stunned because this is the first time in his hitting me where I am convinced I did not deserve it. Sixth grade. Other student in art class takes a stuffed animal I brought in to draw in a still life and completely destroys it when I’m not looking. Third grade. Kids call me the cootie girl and make fun of me. I spend my recess times along singing by myself waiting for this supposed “fun” time to fly by. First grade??? I didn’t clean my room. Dad comes home from work, screams at me to come into his room, bend over the bed. I know what I’m in for. His belt slides quickly out of his oversized pants, (the woosh of leather sliding through pant loops is unforgettable and so sharp in my mind), and I don’t know which is more horrifying, his uncontrollable, inconsolable rage, or the snap of the belt against my back and behind as I squirm and learn to, in some ways, appreciate the pain. It is the only thing in the world that feels right. It is what I deserve. Twelfth grade. Half-assed attempt at suicide. Cry for help.

Yet here I am… still here. I guess I should give myself credit for that. But I’m still that girl whose only understanding of self was someone who was not worth much of anything at all. My comfort zone was playing the role of scape goat. Want someone to blame for all of your problems? Blame me. It’s easier that way. Everyone needs a scape goat.

The problem is, no one really needs a scape goat. No want wants a martyr. People want people who are confident and effective. They want leaders who can get shit done. A good friend recently explained to me that one of my biggest flaws in leadership is that I don’t communicate decisions clearly. I’m so whishy washy. You want to know why I don’t communicate decisions clearly? Because I can’t make them. If a decision must be made by instinct than I don’t trust mine. I grew up being told time and again that whatever I thought wasn’t right. If it’s a decision made by data then sure this should be easier but there’s never enough data to support decisions that in large part must be based on intuition and enacted with full confidence.

So every single day, I’m faced with this huge problem — if I don’t trust my decisions, even on the most minute detail, how can I expect anyone else to? And the way leadership works, you don’t really get a lot of chances. You fuck up once and your cover is blown. You need to be clear, solid, directed, and consistent. That shouldn’t be so hard. But my challenge is I make my decisions based on understanding what other people want. That’s how I was raised. I take in a lot of information, pay close attention to how people react to something, and then come out with a solution which is a compromise of what everyone else wants. Only when I really feel it is what “other people want” can I confidently back it up. My own opinions/ideas/thoughts have absolutely no worth. At least not until I can create a final project/result and it is a big reveal moment. When I can show versus tell – then, and only then, can I have confidence in my own ideas and outputs.

This all is rather disastrous professionally. I’ve clearly added value in the past when I’m able to just run with things, but I crumble when I need to lead. I can’t quite decide yet if I just don’t want to be a leader or if I want to be a leader but I really suck at it today. Every single tiny choice builds up great anxiety in my chest. I have physical pain in my chest daily due to being frozen over decisions. I fear I’m not intelligent enough to pick door number one or door number two. My communication skills are beyond pathetic and people run out of patience with me. I find myself fantasizing about moving to New Mexico and working as a waitress at a diner for the rest of my life because then I don’t have to make any choices – I just have to take orders.

But I also don’t like just taking orders. Even if an individual contributor-type job paid the same as a managerial position, I would feel stifled in that. I do have ideas. I do like to make processes better. I do see the bigger picture and understand very quickly how one thing can effect many others. I feel like there’s something there of value, though not everyone values it. And often this skill, if you’d call it that, is actually a determent to success. Instead of focusing on what moves the needle now I want to fix the bigger picture. I feel this unrelenting, heavy, exasperating pull to fix the architecture of the bigger picture. And I spend too much time stuck in this as a way to avoid dealing with the real issue – that I can’t actually make day-to-day decisions… whether that be what to wear or how to delegate a task. And, as a result, I drive everyone nuts. I wouldn’t want to work with me.

At the end of the day, I do need a job. And if I have to have a job – which I do – I want one where I know I’m adding value. As someone who was raised to “serve” versus to “lead,” I am only happy when I accomplish a task set out for me and am rewarded for not just meeting expectations but overachieving on this task. The clearer the goal and more my own doing can get me there, the more productive I am and the more success I achieve. When things aren’t so cut and dry, when there’s a thousand things to do in order to do a remotely good job and there’s only time in the day for four of them, I am crippled beyond belief. I still get work done, but I do it at night, when I can escape the confines of the office, where I can breathe and think and focus.

I want more than anything to be successful right now. It really isn’t about the money, though that’s a nice plus. I want to make a difference. I want to prove to myself and others that I can get shit done. That I can lead. That I can be a great leader. But clearly I don’t actually believe this to be possible. How could I? I’ve been beaten down so many times throughout my life, I’ve been told I’m into good enough and others are better than I am, I’ve been bullied and ridiculed (sometimes for good reason) and I am at the point where I must admit that will always be me… that is never going to change. Either I learn to deal with it – or embrace it – or I’m not sure what.

I know I have to stop being so hard on myself… I honestly feel like I might have a heart attack any day now… or at least some full-blown “take me to the mental hospital” panic attack — but there isn’t time to deal with it effectively. I mean, you can say there isn’t time to not deal with it, but nothing I’ve tried so far has worked. I’m tired of costly therapy that goes no where. At the end of the day, maybe I’m just not cut out for this… business world. I don’t know. There must be others out there in the world who were raised in a similar way I was — children of narcissists, low self esteem, bullied as children, bipolar II, highly anxious, and still making their way in the world somehow. Who are they and how do they cope? Is it possible to rise above all of this to make quick, confident decisions and actually lead effectively? Or is this hopeless? No psychologist would tell me it’s hopeless – they get paid to “fix” these problems – but I want to know, really, if this is hopeless – hopeless in that I’m never going to be the right fit for this, and hopeless in that I should get used to lower-paying jobs where I can maintain a stable living and “dot the i’s” all day in someone else’s vowel-only alphabet.

You know that quote about how leaders are made, not born? I’m not sure I believe that to be the case. Sure, anyone can become a “B” quality leader, but the best leaders are people who just have something in them that I’ve never had and I never will have.

The hardest part is being able to so easily break out the qualities that I believe it takes to be a leader and look at why I can never achieve these qualities.

1. A Great Leader has The Ability to Say Exactly What She Wants to Say… in as few words as possibleI’m naturally, howdoyousay, verbose. While in writing this verbosity can come off eloquent, in person I am a rambling mess. While I can certain optimize my speech and communication skills, it takes all of my energy, as someone with ADHD, to be able to follow my own train of thought, store relevant comments, and hold them for just the right moment to share them, while also following what everyone else is saying. Typically the scenerio is that I have so much on my mind that either I hold it all in, say nothing at all, and feel frustrated about it — or more often I just blurt out what I feel needs to be said. The thing is, in my world, there is never a good or right time to talk. Unless I literally raise my hand and wait my turn to be called on, I don’t feel comfortable jumping into conversations. I acknowledge that 50% of the time I’m oversharing or overasking, but sometimes I do have good, relevant questions. The problem is that once you’ve shown that you suck at communication, no matter what you say, you’ll never really be listened to again. A great leader never runs into this massive road block in the first place.

2. A Great Leader Can Say No with Authority and Doesn’t Have to Explain WhyThe best leaders are so confident that they can navigate the complex world of office politics and prioritization with ease, or at least it seems so “above the water.” When she says no to a project or ask, it’s clear that she has done so for a long line of really good reasons. Simply said, she has her shit together, and whenever she’s asked to explain something she’s able to quickly process her thoughts to output a very clear, simple statement that is taken and accepted as the way it has to be.

3. A Great Leader isn’t an ArtistLeaders cannot be perfectionists — unless they are Steve Jobs and even then there’s a balance of business savvy and communication skills that makes that level of OCD-ism acceptable to certain followers. But 99.999% of leaders are not setting out to create art everyday in everything they do. They do the bare minimum possible to reach the best possible results and move on. Quite frankly, they do not invest so much of their heart and soul into everything they do, because if they did, it would crush them. On the Myers Briggs scale, they rank low on the “Feeling” type. They rule their world by logic, efficiency, and the fastest, most acceptable route to success.

4. A Great Leader Loves to Delegate and Take Credit for Other’s WorkThe best leaders know that their success is built on top of the shoulders of an amazing team. Sure, they may have hired and motivated that team to do their best work, but ultimately the success of any given leader is the result of all that work going on behind the magic curtain. I mean, just look at politicians — while they have a natural ability to speak with confidence and to only say the bare minimum, they also have a team of experts advising them on what to say, what to wear, how to move, et al. Leaders are only as effective as they are in convincing people to do a lot of work for them and to then take the majority of credit / reward for that work, all in the name of being a “great manager.”

5. A Great Leader Doesn’t Care What Other People ThinkWhen you’re raised day after day that your opinions are wrong, that anything you think or do that conflicts with your fathers one take on every thing in the world, you get to a point early in life when you become so neurotic about what everyone else thinks and how everything you think or do is wrong that you have no hope of coming off remotely confident. What’s worse, that horrible relationship between you and your parental figures gets played out time and time again in your life, whether that’s a boss who treats you like you’re worthless or worse, you’re set up to return to that sort of mildly abusive type of relationship. It’s the only thing that feels safe and completely awful all at the same time. A great leader would never get caught in such traps. She would immediately showcase her charisma and confidence, and handle any conflict with ease. And if she messed up a small thing, she wouldn’t obsess over it for hours, letting it ruin her day. She really doesn’t give a shit what people think, unless it effects the primary goals she is aiming to achieve.

Here’s the thing. I’m not a leader. I am an operations type person as I see inefficiencies and patterns and can creatively come up with ways to fix them. I come off overly critical of others when in reality I’m much, much more critical of myself, but I can’t for the life of me provide constructive criticism without it coming off like I’m some distant cousin of satan once or twice removed. Either I’m too apologetic or too bitchy or both. I don’t know how the fuck I manage to be both but I do. And every time I hear myself speak I want to fling my fist at my face and run out of the room.

So why write about all this? How does it help? I guess I keep coming back to the question of – do I HAVE to be a leader? Yes, leaders make more money, and yes, I like being in charge (to an extent) and yes, I prefer to lead then to follow bad leadership, but — I’ve never really been a leader even in leadership type roles. I’m always some peon who speaks out of turn and accidentally misses a typo in an email that was blasted out or who can’t multi-task a dozen projects at once and effectively delegate/complete them all without feeling like I needed to have my hand in everything.

It’s challenging to go from being raised focusing on art – where the details matter and you’re supposed to spend time to make things the way you want – to a life where the real world is all about just good enough, not giving a fuck, as my friend puts it, and just getting through another day. It’s sad to me if that’s all life is. I want to care. I know at the end of the day certain things don’t matter… and certainly at the end of the year who will even remember whether something was flawlessly executed or just a step above half assed? I’m not sure. I just know that I have entered a level of stress I haven’t experienced before because this time around I really do care. I care and I love the opportunity on a lot of levels and I want more than anything to be successful. But without having this innate ability to be a leader, I’m not sure how long I can last faking it.

I’ve been really hard on myself at work these past couple of weeks. One of my direct reports reminded me today that I should be proud of how much I’ve accomplished in just the eight-ish weeks I’ve been at the company. Putting this perspective on things made me smile. Of course, I could do more. Of course, I could be better. But work isn’t about perfection. It’s about GSD and learning from your mistakes.

Things are starting to come together. Don’t get me wrong, I have more work on my plate now than I did a week ago, and the pile of to do list doesn’t show signs of stopping. But I’m starting to get a handle on what I need to do to be successful. I’m still not sure if I can do it, but I do my best work when I know what I need to do and can focus on getting it done. When I’m not clear about the steps to achieve my goals is when I flounder. I need to just pick what to do and do it. Getting something done is much better than freezing out of uncertainty, which tends to be my schtick. Well, schtick no more.

I also am so happy that my talented friend is jumping in and committing more contract hours to helping out. He’s just a machine (in a good way.) I’m trying to get over this stupid inferiority complex where I have this deep rooted fear of bringing in people who are smarter than me because people will wonder why I’m on staff in the first place. The reality is that smart leaders hire people who are smarter than they are. I still wish I could be great at everything but that’s not realistic. It’s better to show that I can effectively bring in smart people to get the job done well.

Relatedly, I had a really good conversation with one of my direct reporters today. They have a lot to offer and I need to learn to effectively manage and nurture their potential. If I can get my shit together next year can be really good. I’m glad that I’m not expected to hire a giant team. I can focus on a few key people and try to be a good leader. That means very different things to each employee/consultant. Ultimately a good leader provides clear direction and isn’t flaky on their decisions. Once the leader commits to something they follow through with it unless they have a really good reason to change course. Make a decision, get shit done, learn from said shit, rinse & repeat, repeat, repeat, suds and all.

There is so much more I have to do to become an effective leader. I’m still terrible at communication. Somehow everything I say comes across as defensive or overly critical… unless I just don’t say anything at all. It’s really frustrating that every word that comes out of my mouth is, well, wrong, if there is such a thing as ones words being wrong. I tend to earn trust and respect via my work so people overlook my inability to communicate, but it’s going to hold me back a lot as I try to move up the corporate ladder.

A big part of what I need to work on is listening. With ADHD it is a bad habit to talk out of turn and blurt out things that I am thinking. The real reason I do that is twofold – one, because I tend to forget what I’m about to say and want to get it out before I do, and secondly, moreso, because I don’t know how to actually organically enter into a conversation, say what I have to say, and exit at the right point, without it being too late to talk about what we were talking about a few minutes earlier. Either I’m butting into a conversation too soon or I’m going back to something that everyone stopped talking about once they’ve moved on to the next topic. It’s really frustrating and embarrassing.

I wish I could be one of those people who everyone else just wanted to listen to, because everything I said was stated so eloquently that who would want to interrupt? There is someone at my company who is really good at that, and is equally as frustrated at my foot in mount disease, which I’m trying to curb significantly around them to avoid destroying the relationship. I admire their ability to just say the right things at the right time. I might not always agree with their ideas (actually most of the time I do) but I’m talking more about how they present themselves and their words.

If only I could just copy their demeanor and communications style, but it isn’t quite so easy. In lieu of giving up on being an executive I need to fix this huge challenge of mine. The other option is that I change course and, I don’t know, become a best-selling novelist, or a beach bum in a third world country. You know, at least there are options.

This colleague is exactly my age, at my supposed ranking of seniority in the company (title-wise) and yet he has two direct reports. I, on the other hand, have none. And, as I told him, if for some reason we both had to leave our current positions today, he’d be set up for a VP-level role at another company (or at least one at the same level) whereas I’d have difficulty securing a position at my level due to not having direct management experience.

But that’s not the real reason I want to manage. I’m at a time in my life and career where I have ideas on how to move the needle that are bigger than what one person can do. I also want to learn how to be a good manager, but it’s so challenging as I wasn’t brought up in the most socially normal family and my general “how to relate to other people sense” is always lacking. I’m really working on that, and hopefully it shows. I figure I’ll always be ADHD and sometimes not think before I talk completely, but as long as I keep a positive attitude and am not afraid to be relentlessly enthusiastic, it will get me somewhere in life. Well, it’s gotten me where I am today to a point. Still, I’m no cheerleader. Continue reading →

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About Me

The anti-minimalist: I'm the absolute worst with money. I have a shopping addiction. That's exactly why this blog exists. HECC is not a typical personal finance blog. I started it in 2007 to hold myself accountable for binge spending, a dropping networth, and lack of overall fiscal literacy. 10 years later, had achieved a networth of over $500k. Now my goal is to hit $1M by 40. Recently married and with my first kid on the way, things are about to get... interesting. I write about the intersection of mental health and money, spending & investing, and millennial personal finance.